


if we're honest with each other

by nevermindirah



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Community: theoldguardkinkmeme, Consent Issues, Direct Communication, Emotional Intimacy, Emotional Trauma, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Voyeurism, No voyeurism directly depicted, References to Medical Torture, Reproductive Coercion, The Eugenicist Bitch Who Shall Not Be Named, The only sexual contact in this fic happens between people who care about each other, They consent to have sex with each other to the extent possible under the circumstances, Third parties require them to have sex regardless of their consent, conversations about consent, threatened rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:53:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28565664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevermindirah/pseuds/nevermindirah
Summary: The US Marine Corps has Nile Freeman's DNA. Booker doesn't betray his family, but a certain eugenicist pharma bro captures them anyway.On the testing docket is reproductive coercion.This is how Nile gets through it.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman
Comments: 16
Kudos: 76





	if we're honest with each other

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by this kinkmeme prompt: [reluctant noncon in the lab](https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/5194.html?thread=1616714#cmt1616714).
> 
> Content warning details (spoilers): This fic focuses on the emotional experience of being captured and required by your captors to have sex with someone who it happens you would've happily fucked of your own volition sooner or later, but your captors had to go and make it traumatic as shit by forcing you to do specific sex acts on their schedule and without pregnancy protection. Detailed depiction of cunnilingus that's enthusiastically consented to within the coercive situation, and very brief depiction of penis-in-vagina sex that's required by the captors. The fic doesn't specify whether it's possible for immortals to get pregnant / get someone pregnant, and no pregnancies happen. Characters are described as having a uterus or sperm, not with gendered labels (#TransAuthor). We don't see any characters participating in nonconsensual voyeurism, though it's implied some characters might be doing that off-screen. Very detailed depiction of the emotional experience during captivity, mostly Nile's perspective and some of Booker's, including reference to medical racism and forced pregnancy during enslavement. Broader depiction of both of them reacting to and processing this experience after they're freed, including references to PTSD symptoms, but no detailed depictions of panic attacks.
> 
> Comment or message me if you've got more questions about the warnings. This fic is not for everybody. Take care, y'all.

Booker took the initial meeting with Copley but he never agreed to anything. He's been clinically depressed for two centuries and he would love nothing more than to die permanently, and Copley probably has good intentions, but there's no fucking way Merrick does. There's no way this wouldn't end with them all strapped to lab tables behind a dozen biometric locks. He tells himself he says no to protect his family, but the real reason is he doesn't want to end up more like Quynh than he already is.

He tells Copley to lose his number and doesn't look back.

Booker's alone when he dreams of Nile. By the time he's woken up and processed what he saw, Andy and Nicky have already filled the Signal group thread with extraction plans. Joe, also slower to wake, texts Booker about getting supplies for the new one.

All four of them scoop Nile out of the clutches of the US military industrial complex, and they welcome her into this bizarre life with warm hugs and clean clothes and home-cooked food and weeks and weeks of peace. Nile's devastated by the idea that contacting her mom is an existential threat to this new family, of course. She does her best to cope with it, and when Andy says she can name anywhere in the world other than the United States to set up for a while, Nile dreams big. That's what brings the team to the hotel in Marrakech.

But the US military contracts with Merrick Pharmaceuticals, and Booker's good but he can't falsify Nile's paperwork well enough that nobody remembers the Marine corporal who died and came back to life. The USMC has her DNA. It's only a matter of time before one of the lab testing subcontractors flags the unusual data set and sends it up the chain.

Nile gets four months of peace.

* * *

They've been strapped down to lab tables for a little over an hour when Booker admits that he'd had a meeting two years ago with a former CIA operative who wanted them to volunteer for this. He blames himself for not killing the guy when he had the chance.

Andy agrees.

Nile knows there's not a damn thing any of them could have done to protect her from the Marines, and she says so. Four months living with Joe and Nicky has given her new perspective on her service for a country she's always known doesn't care about her. Her chain of command was sending her to Germany for more tests when the team got her. This new family of hers gave her what reprieve they could, but this was probably inevitable, and they're better off focusing on how to get themselves free.

It's dehumanizing, of course it is. They're strapped down in a neat little row, all shirtless, Nile and Andy allowed to keep their sportsbras. Supervised bathroom visits twice a day. Bland but nutritionally adequate meals at predictable hours. Only one doctor ever touches them, and she's awful but she's not actively trying to cause them pain so much as she doesn't care whether pain is a byproduct of her single-minded scientific focus. The guards range from soullessly professional to vaguely menacing — a few of them are clearly enjoying the power trip but so far none of them have tried to abuse their power beyond looking a little too long in the twice-weekly supervised group showers.

At least all five of them are in the same room together.

(At least Andy's still just as immortal as the rest of them.)

They pass the time between tests and nightmares by telling each other stories. Nile's Amazigh and Ligurian and Occitan are improving by leaps and bounds, and by the end of the first week Andy is starting to teach her ancient Vietnamese. No telling who's listening in or for what purpose, so ancient language immersion it is.

* * *

They've been trapped there for 10 days when it happens.

Andy stops healing.

She's ok, she assures them that she's ok. She'll heal from this biopsy the slow way, like any other mortal, because apparently she's one of those again.

The doctor is displeased by this development because she was planning to begin a new phase of her study today and now she only has one candidate eligible for these particular tests.

* * *

Two guards lug a mattress into the lab, deposit it on the floor, toss on top of it a few of the same thin white sheets that line the lab tables, and silently line up against the wall facing them. Then the doctor is there, and she's explaining that the next phase of research will involve whether immortality can be passed on to children.

Nile is the only immortal with a uterus, and Booker has been selected as the first candidate to impregnate her. The doctor takes off their restraints.

They will be allowed one hour without restraints every day in order to facilitate this phase of the testing.

"There's no need to rape you," the doctor says. "You will become pregnant, one way or another, and your contribution will benefit millions. There's no need for this part to be painful, so I suggest you take the opportunity we are giving you and enjoy it."

The doctor doesn't say out loud what "one way or another" means but Nile can guess by a few of the guards' smirks what those pieces of shit are hoping to be allowed to do to her. Jesus fucking Christ.

This is dehumanizing as shit. SERE supposedly prepared her for this, but Jesus fucking Christ.

All five of them are silent as the doctor and guards leave the room. Booker hasn't moved from the table he's no longer strapped to, head tilted back as if in defeat, eyes squeezed shut. The others are all looking at Nile, who is the first one to speak.

"Did that bitch just tell me to lie back and think of England?" She's working so hard to regulate her breathing that she can't stop herself from saying it in English.

It breaks the tension, and by the time Nile is on her feet it feels like everyone in the room is talking all at once in a different ancient language she mostly understands by now. "You don't have to do this" comes from Joe at the same time as "I'm so sorry," from Andy and "We will find another way," from Nicky. It's the first opportunity any of them has had to touch each other in the nearly two weeks they've been trapped here, and Nile walks down the line of them, Andy then Joe then Nicky, and gives them each a tight hug around their restraints.

She of course doesn't have keys or a knife or superhuman strength, so there's nothing she can do to free her family, at least not right now.

Booker is the only one not talking, and when Nile turns around to look at him over at the other end of the tidy row of tables, tears are streaming down his face. She gives him a half-smile.

"I can't decide whether this'll be easier to cope with if I make a joke that you really know how to flatter a girl, crying like that at the thought of having sex with me."

He matches her grim half-smile and finally stands up from the table. 

The doctor and guards make a very big show of never leaving anything unattended that might be useful in an escape, but there's a box of tissues, and Booker grabs a few and mops his face, blows his nose.

This— this _sucks_. For so many reasons, most of which Nile isn't letting herself consciously think about until she is far, far away from this place. Like how many of her ancestors were forced to breed like this. Like how _lucky_ she feels to have never been raped, when she knows how often that happens to women Marines. 

She is getting herself and her new family the fuck out of here and they are all getting some goddamn therapy because this is _bullshit_.

One of the many reasons this sucks is that Nile was starting to think that maybe someday something real might happen between her and Booker. That's blown to hell, maybe irreparably, and the thought of it doesn't make her brain short out like some of the other things, but it fucking sucks.

He seems to want a minute to himself — he's turned his back to them while he blows his nose and gets himself together — so Nile spends some time walking between Andy and Joe and Nicky to hold their hands. To remind herself that touch doesn't have to be torture. Touch can be family giving each other comfort.

Nile asks them, "Will y'all talk amongst yourselves, give us what privacy you can? Just shout if you hear anyone coming." She clenches her jaw when she realizes what she said. "This is such bullshit. Thanks for not laughing at my very accidental double entendre just now. Just don't pity me, ok? We're gonna get through this and we're gonna get the fuck out of here and this will be a lot less traumatic for all of us if we're honest with each other and have each other's backs."

"Of course," Nicky says. He gives her hand a squeeze. "Everything we've talked about, taking what you learned from the Marine Corps and using it to be the kind of person you want to be now, you're doing exactly that. I'm proud of you."

"We all are," says Joe. Andy doesn't say anything, but she stretches her fingers out to ask for one last touch of hands before Nile has to go do— whatever this is going to be.

Booker has turned around but he won't meet Nile's eyes, and Nile inhales sharply, because she would really rather not have to carry them both through this. She's winding up to say something when Andy beats her to it.

"Book," Andy says, "it's gonna be ok. Nile just said something really smart that this bullshit will be less traumatic if we're honest with each other and have each other's backs. Can you get on board with that?"

He lets out a long breath, nods, clenches his jaw. Then he finally makes eye contact with Nile. "How about we sit down and figure out how we're gonna handle this?"

"Ok," she says. Nile gives Andy's hand one last squeeze before she crosses the room and sits gingerly next to Booker on the bare mattress.

"We've probably got 45 minutes," Booker says. "That is, if the bitch wasn't lying about giving us an hour for this fucking absurd— sorry, this is probably even worse for you, I need to get a handle on myself."

Nile could put a gentle hand on his shoulder, dig deep inside herself and find a comforting word to offer him when she has so little to give right now. She could make the double entendre joke he just opened himself up to. She could break her knuckles against the door until time is up, dare the doctor to go to whatever she has in that shitty eugenicist mind of hers for Plan B, and try to steal a gun.

But Booker seems to have pulled himself together without her having to do anything. Which is nice.

And that's what that crush of hers is, isn't it? He's a mess, but so is she, in her own way, though if it were a competition he's definitely winning by a mile. He's chill to be around, doesn't judge. He doesn't try to nurture her how Nicky and Joe sometimes do, doesn't push her like Andy does — don't get her wrong, she likes that, at least coming from them, and some of the time. Booker just lets her be. It's— nice. There are things she talks about only with him and she's started to get the sense that he's more open with her than he is with the others.

"Fuck, this is awkward," he says. "I've already watched three children die, and watching a fourth born as a lab rat will break me. I might not—"

He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and then opens them and looks her right in the eye. "I might not be able to keep my dick up for this. I hate that they might hurt you more because of that. But it's not because I— fuck, it's, I'm so sorry, we are getting out of here and blowing up this entire goddamn building. I just want you to know that it's not because I'm not attracted to you, because I— because I am. A lot. Maybe telling you that makes it worse, I—"

"Hey," she says. "Look at me." She says it and then realizes she doesn't know what to say next.

The others are keeping their promise with a steady stream of chatter in a language Nile doesn't recognize. They have somewhere between half an hour and 40 minutes left of this whatever the fuck Twilight Zone consent nightmare bullshit. She knows all five of them are watching their internal clocks — if her estimate is off, her family will warn her. She can take another minute to just look into this man's eyes.

Two minutes pass slowly but surely. They just look at each other. She couldn't say who started it, but somehow, despite everything, she's smiling at him now, and he's smiling back.

"This is a spectacularly weird time to tell you I've got a crush on you," she says. The hope she thought she saw in his eyes starts to burn a little brighter. "I was hoping we might get here on our own someday."

His whole face brightens. "Yeah?" he says. "When these pieces of shit kidnapped us, I'd been thinking about asking you out on a date."

She can feel her cheeks burning — and stretching too, she hasn't had much cause to smile this wide since before they were captured.

"Ok," she says. "How about you take me on a date to this lab room floor for the next, say, 20 minutes. And then we get dressed and have some pillow talk about our second date, where you'll take me on a revenge spree that involves blowing up this building."

"If we're going on a date, can I be a little forward?"

"Please do," she says. How the fuck she feels so light right now she does not know, but she'll goddamn take it, so when she gets the impulse to make a silly little old-timey gesture, a "Please do go on, good sir" type thing, she indulges it.

His smile turns shy, and Nile doesn't know if it's the silly gesture or whatever he's about to say next or what, but damn, he's pretty. Especially with that nervous lip bite.

This situation is fucking awful. Maybe this one tiny little pocket of time, though — maybe this will be nice. Maybe it'll even be a little fun.

"We'll have to wait for another time for me to take you to dinner, but for now, maybe I could eat you?"

Nile answers with a kiss. She lets herself really kiss him, lets herself get as lost in the moment as much as she can given the proverbial gun to their heads. 

It's still awkward as hell. They're almost certainly being recorded, being watched. The mattress is small and lumpy and the floor is cold and when they get settled between the thin and scratchy sheets it breaks the spell a little. They decide to stay as partially-clothed as possible in case "you have an hour" turns out to be a lie and they have to defend themselves. And there's still plenty of trauma neither of them are looking in the eye just yet.

This is awful, conceptually. Actual conception would be awful too, if that's even possible, which Nile isn't sure about and absolutely cannot think about right now. Honesty, having each other's backs, and staying in the moment — that's how they get through this.

So Booker settles on top of her and Nile gets a hand in his hair and pulls him down and kisses him.

She tells him to leave her sportsbra on, says he's welcome to feel her up as much as he wants over top of it. His hands are warm and his touch is a comfort.

Who is she kidding, his touch is hot as hell. Someday she'll deal with the trauma surrounding this, but right this very moment this very pretty mess of a man is running his hands all over her torso, grabbing her ass, brushing his knuckles over her nipples, all the while checking in that she's ok. She can feel him getting hard through his jeans.

When he licks a stripe down her neck that becomes open-mouthed kisses across her collar bones and down to her cleavage, she knows his mouth is eventually going to make it down to where she is somehow, despite everything, _soaking wet_.

He pauses over the button of her jeans. "Yes," she says. "I want your mouth on me."

They've been trying to keep their moans to a minimum. The sound he makes when she asks him to go down on her echoes through the room and his blush is the sexiest damn thing.

No, the sexiest damn thing is _his tongue on her_. Dear God, he did not waste any time sliding her jeans and panties down just past her knees and getting his face where they both want it.

They both want _this_. Fuck the rest of it, this tiny little pocket of time, _this_ is good.

All Nile has to do is hold on tight to the thin sheet providing their only privacy, keep track of time, and block out the trauma for later. Booker's doing all the work, and _fuck_ , he is good at this. She didn't ever once in her life think she'd describe the brush of a beard against her pussy as _soothing_ of all fucking things, but it _is_. He's taking his time, nuzzling her, tasting her, giving her just enough pressure at just enough of a pace without anything feeling— well, without anything feeling forced.

She keeps up a steady stream of praise in quiet Occitan, so he knows she's ok, so he knows he can stop if he needs to. So he knows how _good_ he is for her.

It takes her a solid 15 minutes to come. The feeling is there and gone in a flash, and the moment he understands why the tension in her thighs has changed, he's unzipping his pants and getting his dick out and meeting her eyes before he lines himself up.

"Yes," she says. "You?"

He nods and slides in.

Now it's his turn for the steady stream of praise, and he mostly alternates between "you're so beautiful" and "we're going to be ok" in the two and a half minutes it takes him to complete the assigned task.

* * *

That night, Nile and Booker dream of Quynh, just like they have every night of their immortal lives. But this is the first night they dream of her on dry land.

Nile and Booker go on four more "dates" to the sad mattress on the cold lab floor. They choose to make dark jokes about how they've got it down to a science: 5 minutes to make out, 20 minutes for Booker to go down on Nile, 5 minutes for the compulsory ejaculation, 30 minutes to cuddle and plan their escape.

Nile is learning some very specialized Occitan vocabulary.

The dreams aren't clear enough to coordinate their plans in any detail, but Quynh is in England and she's coming for them. It's only a matter of time.

Quynh saves them. All that time Booker and Nile spent cuddling on the floor, using pillow talk to mask studying the way the lab tables were bolted to the floor and how they might undo them, proves very useful.

They kill the doctor, the guards, and Merrick. They leave the building un-exploded because "fires spread to other buildings" and "Quynh didn't bring enough c4" but Booker has a look in his eye that makes Nile think someday she might be in for a hell of an anniversary gift.

They make it to a safehouse outside Amsterdam and Nile takes five different drug store tests to confirm the miraculous news: she is not pregnant.

Booker is as relieved as she is, maybe even more.

Honesty, having each other's backs, and staying in the moment served them really well when they needed it most, so they keep it up. Booker needs some space and he tells her so. He'd like to cuddle if she's ok with that, but not do anything else for a while. And then he wants to take her on a date.

That works great for Nile, who doesn't know what the fuck she needs right now beyond some time to figure it out.

Nile eventually starts to ask the team about all their safehouses. Which ones are actual houses and not holes in the ground? Which ones are the most defensible, with the strongest locks? What's their digital security setup? Where can they safely set off an EMP to really make sure to knock out any nearby electronics?

The team spends more time in the Amsterdam safehouse recovering from their ordeal than they'd spent in the lab.

And then Booker takes Nile on a real date. There's no blowing up a building, but setting off the EMP is close enough. Booker cooks her dinner, and breakfast the next morning, and lunch, and they don't leave their luxury fortress at all for two whole weeks. He takes her dancing in the living room, and they curl up together to read books and tell stories, and Nile has brought an entire suitcase full of puzzles and board games. They're not telling a goddamn soul outside their family where they are, not even the narrator.

They're both still grieving the families they've lost. They're both still processing the absolute bullshit they've just been through. They're both going to be absolute messes for a while to come.

They're finding that the vibe Nile was starting to pick up on in her first few months is true: they can be completely themselves together, mess and all. It's amazing. It's— it's _nice_. And in this fortress with absolutely no recording devices whatsoever, they can take their goddamn time and have as little or as much of whatever kind of sex they want.

They wait two days into their date/vacation before having any sex at all. Later that night, Nile comes so hard and for so long that her scream shatters a window. They both laugh so hard they cry.

Yeah. This tiny little pocket within a world of bullshit. It's nice.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I'm a sexual harm survivor who generally needs to completely avoid all sexual violence depictions in fanworks beyond the occasional "someone was raped, we never describe it, and this fic is about their healing from it" type stuff. I read a kinkmeme prompt two months ago that just _dug under my skin_ and I didn't really know what to do about it, then I had a beautiful chat with [takethisnight_wrapitaroundme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/takethisnight_wrapitaroundme/pseuds/takethisnight_wrapitaroundme) in the comments on a fic of theirs I haven't read yet [about content warning detail requests and fandom as an ideal place for exploring consent issues](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/379223400).
> 
> The resulting fic only sort of gets at the prompt. It's understandable if OP or others who were excited about the prompt are disappointed that this doesn't do what they were hoping for. If you feel that way please just don't tell me, my trauma and I thank you. No judgment! Just boundaries. ❤️
> 
> A different version of this draft had 250-year-old Nile telling Booker about a fantasy she's had for a long time (the prompt) and them discussing it and deciding to do it as a scene. I didn't get far in that draft, but I'm sharing this line of Nile's from that alternate version because I think it gets to the heart of why this prompt got so deep under my skin.
> 
> "It took me a while to figure out why I had this intense fantasy of you fucking me on a cold lab floor because the doctors threatened to rape us both of you didn't. In order for that to not be traumatic as hell for both of us, we would need to be completely on the same wavelength, drift compatible. I want to believe we could trust each other that intensely even when we barely knew each other."


End file.
